Short, personal, and opinionated views on books, movies, and TV.

Travelers

Scientists in the future, seeking to avoid some unspecified calamity a few years from now, send travelers back through time to try and prevent it. The travelers jump into the bodies of folks who are about to die, in order to carry out a variety of missions designed to change the past. Although scenario is somewhat similar to Twelve Monkeys, here we never see the future dystopia — virtually all the action takes place in the present day. And here there are hundreds of travelers, scattered in small teams around the globe. The travelers, despite their advanced technology, encounter unexpected difficulties — one guy discovers, for example, that his “host” was a drug addict, with a physical addiction that he has to deal with. And it quickly becomes obvious that the future government in charge of designing time-changing missions may be making other mistakes as well, and risk actually making the future worse. A large part of the plot deals with how the travelers struggle with how far “off-book” they can, or should go. Very well done.

Series 1 currently available on Netflix. Series 2 will be available later this year.